PLEASE keep your letters to 250 words maximum giving your name, address and daytime telephone number - even on emails. Email: letters@swindonadvertiser.co.uk. Write: Swindon Advertiser, 100 Victoria Road, Swindon, SN1 3BE. Phone: 01793 501806.

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

NHS remains in danger

I THINK Des Morgan is too optimistic when he writes the NHS is safe in the hands of both Labour and Conservatives.

He is right, in my view, to suggest both parties have behaved similarly around the NHS but that doesn’t contradict my criticism of the Tory attacks on it.

Blair’s pursuit of Tory policies, (war, privatisation etc), was disastrous in many respects.

But the trajectory of Government policy on the NHS is clear. We have witnessed wave after wave of top down restructuring, apparently incoherent but all wedging increasing parts of the service open to profit-making by private corporations.

All these initiatives are explained in terms of the need to cut bureaucracy and they all end by increasing bureaucracy.

The 2012/13 changes wasted an estimated £1.5bn before a new restructure began this year. The NHS is told it must make £22bn efficiency savings (euphemism meaning cuts).

There is to be more compulsory competition and we know that the costs of this, financial, legal and administrative, wastes around another £4.5bn annually.

The new “models of care” insisted upon in the latest five-year plan, again point to even more privatisation.

That the process hasn’t gone as quickly as the Tories planned is both because of the popularity of the NHS and as ex-right wing Conservative MP Michael Portillo said a few years back: “They did not believe they could buy an election if they told you what they wanted to do because people are so wedded to the NHS.”

PETER SMITH

Woodside Avenue

Swindon

....

Join walk to fight MS

I WAS diagnosed with MS at the age of 17 – just as I set my sights on being a competitive swimmer.

My Olympic dreams slipped away as my symptoms got worse.

There are more than 100,000 of us in the UK with MS – it’s really unpredictable and different for everyone.

It’s often painful and exhausting, and can make it hard for us do the things we enjoy.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I just won my first ever gold, my sixth Paralympic medal, at the Rio 2016 Paralympics.

I’m ecstatic – being a gold medallist is something I’ve been dreaming about since I was four years old.

It’s a feat I’ve only been able to achieve with the support of my friends and family.

Everyone’s journey with MS is different, but no one has to face it alone.

As the leading charity for people with MS, the MS Society supports people affected by the condition to live independent and fulfilling lives.

They know we’re stronger together, which is why I’m doing the MS Walk – a 5km, 10km or 20km walk along the Thames in London on September, 25.

I will be doing the 5km challenge in my wheelchair, with my husband and 1,000 others from the MS community by my side.

I’d love your readers to join me and support the MS Society – they can find out more at www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-events/ms-walk or join the conversation using the hashtage #MSWalk.

Together, we are strong enough to stop multiple sclerosis.

STEPHANIE MILLWARD

British Paralympic swimmer

and MS Society supporter

....

Panto maestro returns

MAY I please use the letters page of your paper to tell the people of Swindon the following news.

I received through the post yesterday an invitation to buy tickets for a new panto at the Art Centre from Geoff Marsh.

Many of your readers will remember him with great fondness from the Stage Struck days, which we all loved.

He is putting on a new panto this year at the Arts Centre called The Princess And The Dragon.

The dates are as follows: Thursday, November 24 , Friday, November 25, and twice on Saturday 26, a matinee at 2pm and the evening show at 7pm.

I know that Swindon lost a great asset to the town’s culture when they stopped doing the pantos and we all missed them greatly.

If like me you would like to go to this new show then you need to phone the box office on 524481 or book on line at swindontheatres.co.uk.

But you will need to be quick as there are only the four shows and I think tickets will sell out fast.

Finally can I say to all concerned we miss you greatly and it would be fantastic if everything could return to what we had a couple of years ago.

Stage Struck pantos were not only a wonderful experience for us all but they gave the younger generation of this town an opportunity to shine and go on to greater things.

ROY CARTWIGHT

Pinnegar Way

Covingham

Swindon

....

We’re not criminals

I RECENTLY read an offender was found guilty and received an order to do community work, along with a hefty fine.

Isn’t that similar to what the Swindon Council is doing to its residents in the form of parish councils?

The council wants the electorate to take on the unpaid work of keeping the streets clean.

Duties also include cutting grass and cleaning low level graffiti, etc.

It could be argued the fine comes under another name, “the parish precept.”

There’s a difference from the mentioned offender, the vast majority of people in Swindon are law-abiding, good people, but it is evident they are being roughly treated for the council’s misuse of tax payers’ money, and failed projects.

Who is expected to commit themselves for unpaid work cleaning the centre of Swindon?

If they are fortunate the young will be in paid work, that just leaves the infirm and old fogies like me.

WILLIAM ABRAHAM

Rodbourne

Swindon